Innehållsförteckning för September 2016 från Tech Advisor

As Microsoft hurtles towards the release of its major Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the company has introduced a tool that’s supposed to help PC owners resolve problems with activating the operating system on their computers. It has a complex system in place to ensure people are using a copy of Windows that hasn’t been pirated. But that system sometimes gets too aggressive and ends up affecting people with authorised copies of Windows. The new Activation Troubleshooter is supposed to help. It should make it easier for people to reactivate their computers after changing hardware, such as swapping out their motherboard or hard drive. Right now, it’s available only to members of the Windows Insider Program’s Fast ring, who recently got a new beta build of Windows 10 to play around…

Intel’s keynotes can be fun, with robots parading on stage and drones zigzagging around the room. Now the company is making new hardware to help enthusiasts join in the fun by building robots and drones at home. The Robotic Development Kit and Aero Kit provide the necessary hardware and software tools to build robots and drones, respectively. The kits were announced at the Intel Developer Forum in Shenzhen, China. A major element of the developer boards is the RealSense 3D camera, which will ship with the kits and help the robots and drones navigate and avoid obstacles. The depth-sensing camera can recognise items and determine the size, shape and contours of objects. For robots, the camera provides computer vision, which is analogous to eyes in humans. The Robotic Development Kit…

£295 inc VAT Contact vodafone.co.uk Specifications 5.5in (2560x1440, 534ppi) display; Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow); 1.8GHz quad-core Snapdragon 652 processor; Adreno 510 GPU; 8Mp front-facing camera; 16Mp rear-facing camera; 32GB storage; microSD up to 256GB; 3GB RAM; Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ ac; NFC; 3000mAh battery non-removable; Micro-USB; 154x75.7x7mm; 155g Famed for its longevity in the UK mobile network market, Vodafone currently sells five own-brand smartphones (three of which are in our best budget smartphone chart on page 130). While a slight generalisation, they all aim to bring the user 4G connectivity and access to the Android app world on varying budgets. The latest is the Vodafone Smart Platinum 7, and it’s aimed squarely at people who might be considering high-end flagships such as the Samsung Galaxy S7. Design As you might expect, Vodafone’s…

We like a bargain, especially when we’re spending our own money and while a laptop might be an essential device to have around, you probably don’t want to be eating into any savings on it and risk not being able to afford that holiday you’ve been dreaming of. The situation is better than it has been in terms of what you can get for your money. With the rise of smartphone and particularly tablets, laptops have become more affordable and with better specs to tempt consumers. You’re still not going to get anything mind-blowing but it’s amazing what you can find for under £300 or even £200. Chances are you’re looking for a budget laptop for a specific task. Typically, it’s hard to get something that is capable of demanding…

At this sort of price you may be worried about the build quality, but it’s reassuringly solid.While made from plastic, no parts of it flex £179 inc VAT • dell.com/uk Dell wants to prove that a bottom-rung laptop needn’t be an unappealing, chunky brick. The Inspiron 11 3000 is cheap, colourful and about as portable as you could wish for. Available in red, blue or white, it will attract more attention than a MacBook. Design The Inspiron 11 3000 is small, light, but also a proper laptop. A lot of the Windows devices you’ll find around this price are hybrids. Here, the screen is firmly attached to the keyboard base, and the brains sit in the base rather than the display. There are benefits to a traditional device like this.…

You often get what you pay for and this is certainly the case with audio products. Although there are some decent budget options, here we round up the best Bluetooth speakers money can buy. Prices start at £199, which is good for a high-end device, and rise to the heady heights of £499. Most are around the £250 mark, though. All shapes and sizes The speaker you opt for will depend upon what you want from it. You might, for example, be looking for portability and battery life, or a large speaker for your lounge to provide pumping sounds for your party. The difficulty in putting together this group test is that each brand offers a range of different products to suit those varying needs. We’ve made sure there’s a…

Subscription boxes are a recent idea and one that is growing in popularity. Some are centred around food and beer, while other offerings include stationery and clothes. One particularly popular type of box is the nerdy sort, so naturally we couldn’t wait to try some out. Here, we round up eight of the best geeky subscription boxes around. THE BAM! BOX Price: From £19 (plus shipping to the UK) The Bam! Box (tinyurl.com/jrp3bfv) is a monthly mystery box that offers signed merchandise, limited editions and rare collectibles. You should, however, note that the box is sent from outside of the UK and we incurred a customs charge, which meant that our total price was more than £40. The price for a one-month plan is $29.99 (£20.50) plus shipping, or $27.99…

USB Type-C is the intriguing new port that began appearing in laptops, tablets, phones, and other devices well over a year ago, but we had no real way to test its throughput performance until now. Thanks to SanDisk’s Extreme 900, we’re finally able to push that tiny reversible port to its limits. To do that, we gathered up eight laptops equipped with USB Type-C ports, and threw in a desktop PCIe card for good measure, too. What your USB Type-C port isn’t telling you USB Type-C is supposed to be a universal standard, but it’s just universally confusing. It can run at either 5- or 10Gb/s and still be labelled USB 3.1 by the laptop maker. Type-C even technically supports USB 2.0 speeds at a pathetic 480Mb/s. So when you…

Word macros can take almost any repetitive word-processing task and do it for you faster, in just a few keystrokes. Here’s a classic example. You’ve received a document with incorrect formatting throughout. You know what to do – use Search and Replace to fix them all – but doing that manually would be tedious for a short document, and insane for a longer one. Here’s how to program macros to fix them all for you. Note it’s always best to create several smaller macros that perform a single function than one large macro that does it all. The primary reason for this practice is troubleshooting: If the macro fails, it’s much easier to locate and repair a single error than to debug a longer, more complicated macro. Name and assign…

The bot revolution is happening fast for Facebook. After launching third-party bots earlier this year offering everything from forecasts to your boarding pass, the social network says there are now more than 11,000 bots active. To celebrate this, the company has added a bunch of new features that could show up on your favorite bots soon – if developers enable them, that is. Persistent menu One big problem with bots is that they feel a little antiquated. Many of them will only respond to certain commands, which can make the whole experience kind of tedious. You try a certain command. That doesn’t work, so the bot comes back with a selection of commands you can use. Then you pick one, and the bot delivers its information. Hoping to overcome this…

Back in March, Opera added native ad blocking to a developer edition of its browser. Now, the company has pushed that feature into general release, dramatically decreasing the load time of web pages at the expense of the advertising revenues that would be driven to the site. Native ad blocking is available both as a browser for Windows PCs and the Opera Mini browser for Android. Blocking ads not only speeds up the overall browsing experience, according to Opera, but can also eliminate a huge chunk of data that must be downloaded by smartphone users to view a web page. An Opera spokesman said users could expect roughly the same performance from the stable version as they’d experienced in the developer build, with pages loading up to 90 percent faster…

£899 inc VAT Contact asus.com/uk Specifications 15.6in (1920x1080, 276dpi) IPS LCD; matt finish 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ; nVidia GeForce GTX 960M; 8GB DDR3L RAM; 1TB 5400rpm HDD; Gigabit Ethernet; 802.11b/g/n/ac dual-band; 2x2 MIMO; Bluetooth 4.0; 2x USB 3.0; 1x USB 2.0; HDMI SDXC card slot; stereo speakers; HD webcam ;single mic 3.5mm headset jack; UK tiled keyboard; 48Wh lithium-ion battery; 384x257x34.5mm; 2.59 kg The Asus RoG GL552 is a mid-range gaming laptop. Priced £899, it offers solid performance without making graphics sacrifices so major they make it seem you’re playing a Sony PlayStation 2. There are several compromises to note elsewhere, though. Design The laptop looks, feels like, and is, a younger brother to the top-of-the-range Asus G752. The GL552 is smaller and cheaper, but still has some of the…

If you want to play games, view films, use a handset for navigation or as a drone flight controller, you can’t beat a huge-screen phone £212 inc VAT Contact xiaomi-mi.com Specifications 6.44in full-HD (1920x1080) 2.5D display; Android 6.0 Marshmallow with MIUI 8.0; 1.8GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 64-bit hexa-core processor; Adreno 510 GPU; 3GB RAM; 32GB storage; Dual-SIM dual-standby (or use one SIM slot for microSD up to 128GB); 4G FDD-LTE 1800/2100/260MHz;802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi; Bluetooth; GPS; fingerprint scanner; IR blaster; 16Mp, f/2.0 rear camera; 5Mp, f/2.0 front camera; 4850mAh non-removable battery; 173x88x6mm; 203g Xiaomi’s Mi Max is a beast of a smartphone, with a hulking 6.44in screen, decent performance and a mammoth battery. Price Our review unit came from GearBest, which offers free shipping to the UK, though you will more than…

£29 inc VAT Contact raspberrypi.org Specifications Broadcom BCM2837 64-bit system-on-chip with four ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked 1.2GHz; 4X ARM Cortex-A53, 1.2GHz; Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU; 1GB LPDDR2 (900MHz) RAM; 10/100 ethernet, 2.4GHz 802.11n wireless; Bluetooth 4.1 Classic, Bluetooth Low Energy; microSD; 40-pin header, populated GPIO; HDMI, 3.5mm analogue audio-video jack; 4X USB 2.0; ethernet; Camera Serial Interface (CSI); Display Serial Interface (DSI); 122x76x34mm; 59g At first glance, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B appears physically identical to the year-old Pi 2 Model B: the same port selection, the same GPIO pin layout, the same basic board layout, and so on. But don’t let that fool you. The leap to the Pi 3 is just as significant as the prior upgrade, supercharging performance even further and eliminating what few lingering…

Tapping the Shine will first show you your activity progress using a circle of red dots. Your goal is to illuminate all 12 of the lights in a day £79 inc VAT Contact misfit.com Specifications iOS and Android compatible; 12 multicolour LEDs; water resistant: Up to 50m; capacitive Touch-Sensor; vibrating feedback and alarms; watch; three-axis accelerometer and magnetometer; measures steps, calories burned, distance, activity types, sleep quality and duration; Panasonic CR2032 coin cell battery lasts up to six months; Bluetooth 4.1; 30.5x8mm; 8.5g The Misfit Shine 2 is an activity tracker that follows on from Misfit’s original Shine, adding sleep tracking and haptic feedback for notifications and calls into the mix. In essence, it’s a lite version of a smartwatch, offering tracking information to help you count your steps, calories,…

To help protect the Locksmart Mini even further, it has been cased in (what feels like) rubber to add an extra layer of durability £49 inc VAT Contact dogandbonecases.com Specifications Bluetooth connectivity; shared access; interaction tracking; two-year battery life; 128-bit Bluetooth encryption; 7mm hardened steel shackle; die-cast alloy body; weatherproof; 101x51x24mm; 160g These days our smartphones can be used for far more than simply making phones calls – we can pay for items in shops, control our lights and heating systems, and even remotely view security cameras located in our homes, such as the SpotCam Eva on page 40. So it was only a matter of time before smart Bluetooth padlocks became a ‘thing’. Enter the Dog & Bone Locksmart Mini, a smart Bluetooth padlock. Design Before we jump into…

At 2.2kg and 26mm thick, the X553SA is too heavy to carry around for hours at a time without your shoulders complaining £279inc VAT • acer.co.uk The X553SA is a cheap laptop, with a good deal of entry-level features across the board in a ‘proper’ laptop frame. Asus would readily admit that there are compromises at this point, but should they put you off buying the X553SA? We put it through its paces. Design A laptop built on a shoestring budget, you’d hope that Asus wouldn’t make any silly design moves, and it doesn’t. This is an average-looking laptop with a plastic shell. In pure aesthetic terms it’s pleasantly simple. While the lid is plastic, there’s a series of concentric circles fanning across it, mimicking the brushed metal style Asus…

None of the keys have been radically shaved down or moved to silly positions either. The keyboard is not fancy, but solid £299inc VAT • hp.com/uk Compared to some of the colourful and stylish budget laptops around, such as the Dell Inspiron 11 3000, the HP 250 G4 is a plain-looking laptop with no fancy design features. There is something special hidden inside, though. This is one of the cheapest new laptops you’ll find to use an Intel Core-series processor, instantly solving many of the most serious day-to-day problems you’ll run into using a cheap computer. If your laptop fund is limited, you can’t argue with this bargain machine. Design If you’re thinking this is familiar, we reviewed the similar AMD-based model, the HP 255 G4, earlier this year. The…

You’ve probably spent time and money buying the right gaming keyboard and mouse for your PC, and maybe even have other accessories that you hope will give you the edge. Few people put much thought into their chair, though. Gaming chairs are becoming increasingly popular, and we’ve rounded up a small selection of the latest models. Buying guide In most respects, gaming chairs are no different to a regular desk swivel chair. They have height adjustment, castors for smooth movement across the floor and arm rests. However, as with a lot of gaming hardware, gaming chairs are more stylish than your standard office chair and typically take inspiration from the bucket seats in racing cars. What is and isn’t stylish is down to your personal taste, but what should you…

Microsoft is planning a big bash for Windows 10’s first birthday, and you’re the one receiving presents. This summer, the company will push out the free Windows 10 Anniversary Update to Windows 10 PCs, and the update is packed with all sorts of new goodies for you to play with – some niche, some helpful, and all free. It’ll be a few weeks before the update rolls out, but Microsoft has already revealed many of its new features. If you don’t mind living dangerously with unfinished software, you can try many of these new features in Windows 10 preview builds now. Bash shell This will only appeal to developers, but it shows just how far Microsoft has come in the Satya Nadella era. The software company has partnered with Canonical,…

Apple has unveiled iOS 10 at WWDC 2016 and has made it immediately available to developers for the iPhone and iPad. A public beta is coming in July, so unless you’re already enrolled in Apple’s developer program it’s probably not worth spending the £79 to become a developer to get the iOS beta earlier. But if you do decide to enrol, you can do so as an individual, and you’ll also get access to the latest betas of macOS Sierra, watchOS 3 and tvOS. iOS 10 is available for the following devices: iPhone55c 5s, SE, 6, 6 Plus, 6s and 6s Plus iPad (fourth generation); mini 2, 3 and 4; Air and Air 2 iPod touch (sixth generation) The following devices can’t be upgraded to iOS 10: Original iPhone,…

Microsoft has made hardware more of a priority in recent years, what with the Surface Pro line of tablets and Surface Book laptop. But these devices might be just the beginning of Redmond’s PC push. If a couple of new reports are any indication, the company is also about to jump into the desktop PC game. Windows Central recently reported that the company is hard at work on the Surface AIO, an all-in-one desktop PC that could soon join Microsoft’s existing Surface product lineup. The report reinforces the veracity of an earlier report from DigiTimes, which claimed that Microsoft would introduce a Surface desktop PC “in the third quarter of 2016 at the earliest.” Daniel Rubino of Windows Central casts doubt on the timeframe, though, noting that, “our sourcing suggests…

The argument between Apple and the FBI over unlocking an iPhone has likely revealed to the public that companies who specialise in cracking mobile devices even exist When the FBI paid someone to crack the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, it didn’t just deftly bypass Apple’s objections. It also made the public aware of the business side of hacking – a business that is apparently as lucrative as it is discreet. “The recent argument between Apple and the FBI over unlocking an iPhone has likely revealed to the public for the first time that companies who specialise in cracking mobile devices even exist,” said Bill Anderson, chief product officer at OptioLabs (optiolabs.com), a mobile-security developer. Everything we learn about the FBI’s hackers makes the situation more intriguing. Initial reports indicated the…

The upside, in comparison to rivals such as the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and the iPad Pro, is that the price includes the keyboard cover attachment £849 inc VAT Contact samsung.com/uk Specifications 12in Super AMOLED (2160x1440, 216ppi); Windows 10; sixth gen Intel Core M Dual Core 2.2GHz processor; 4GB RAM; 128GB SSD; Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac MIMO; Wi-Fi Direct; NFC; Bluetooth 4.1; 5Mp rear camera; 5Mp front camera; LTE Cat 6 (optional); GPS; GLONASS; Type-C USB 3.1 5200mAh battery; keyboard (290.3x198.8x4.9mm) 290.3x198.8x6.3mm; 696g We live with an abundance of technology. From the computers on our desks and on our coffee tables to the phones we are glued to throughout the waking day, there are just so many devices clamouring for our attention. The Samsung Galaxy TabPro S is one of them…

The screen has increased from 5- to 5.5in, which is a reasonable amount to add, and the resolution has also gone from 720p to Full HD 1080p £169 inc VAT Contact motorola.co.uk Specifications 5.5in (1920x1080, 401ppi) full HD display; Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow); 1.5GHz octa-core Snapdragon 617 processor; Adreno 405 GPU; 5Mp front-facing camera; 13Mp rear-facing camera; 16GB storage; microSD up to 256GB; 2GB RAM; Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ ac; 3000mAh battery with TurboPower fast-charging; Micro-USB; FM radio; 153x76.6x9.8mm; 155g As expected, Motorola has launched a new Moto G budget phone for 2016. Now owned by Lenovo (previously Google), the smartphone maker has kept the familiar design of its predecessor. It has the same overall look and feel, but tweaking it enough to give it some freshness and individuality. For example, the…

From £269 inc VAT Contact amazon.co.uk Specifications 6in (1440x1080, 300ppi) E-Ink touchscreen; 4GB storage; 802.11n Wi-Fi (optional 3G); Micro-USB for charging; 143x122x3.4-8.5mm; 131/238g (Wi-Fi only); 133/240g (Wi-Fi & 3G) Amazon has gone all-out to produce the best e-book reader ever and it has certainly done so with the Kindle Oasis. However, the premium experience comes at a steep price, so for many this won’t be the best option. Design Far from being a just another new Kindle with the same design blueprint, the Oasis is a radically new take on the e-book reader. It’s easily recognisable as a Kindle by sight, but not so much when you hold it in your hand. The Oasis is Amazon’s thinnest and lightest Kindle to date, measuring just 3.4mm at one point and 8.5mm…

£159 inc VAT Contact myspotcam.com Specifications 1280x720 resolution; 30fps maximum frame rate; built-in microphone; built-in speaker; 110-degree diagonal field of view; 360-degree pan range; 70-degree tilt range; H.264 (FLV container when downloaded) video format; Wi-Fi; 139x80mm; 318g SpotCam is a relatively new name in home security cameras. There are three cameras in the range: HD (indoor), HD Pro (outdoor) and the new Eva, which is what I’ll be focusing on here. The Eva is unique among modern consumer-oriented IP cameras in that it can physically rotate and tilt. Other cameras claim PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) but most use a fish-eye lens and then do the ‘panning’ in software. This is the real deal, although note that there is no optical zoom: this is done in software. There’s one other attraction:…

From £10.99 inc VAT Contact dott.doublefine.com Specifications Windows 7 or later; OS X 10.7 or later; PlayStation Store Those of you who played the original Day of the Tentacle back in 1993 understand why this remastered edition is such a big deal. And the rest of you? If you’re wondering why would we start off a review with such a banal statement, then blame LucasArts. Day of the Tentacle is the latest Double Fine re-release, following in the wake of 2015’s Grim Fandango: Remastered. Despite being a classic point-and-click – and many people’s favourite such game of all time – it’s been almost impossible to buy it for the past 15 years or so. And now you can. With great new music and graphics, to boot. It’s enough to make…

To switch between OS, the tablet requires a reboot. It performs this quickly, but remember not to leave any work unsaved £143inc VAT • en.chuwi.com The HiBook is one of few tablets to dual-boot Windows 10 and Android Lollipop, making it a great proposition if you can’t – or don’t want to – separate work and play. This budget tablet comes in at a great price, too. The HiBook reviewed here is sold by Geekbuying for £143, while the optional magnetic docking keyboard costs £34. Geekbuying didn’t supply the keyboard for our review, but we strongly recommend you consider it if you’ll be making much use of the Windows 10 OS on this tablet for productivity tasks. As well as adding a full-size keyboard and trackpad it gives you two…

£299inc VAT • lenovo.com/uk Asus may have established itself as the master of budget hybrids whose screens pop off, but Lenovo has staked a similar claim on hybrids whose screens flip around. There’s a whole dynasty of Yoga laptops of this design, and the 11.6in Lenovo Yoga 300 is the most affordable of the lot. It’s not flashy and expectations of screen quality need to be realistic to avoid disappointment. However, few hybrids or tablets can cope with deal with the limited space of train and airplane tables as well as the Yoga 300. Design The Yoga 300 is the most laptop-like of the two very broadest of hybrid categories. Its screen doesn’t detach, but the hinge lets it flip around almost 360 degrees, turning a laptop into a chunky…

Many devices which record HD video demand a Class 10 card, but most Class 10 microSD cards are capable of much more than the minimum of 10MB/s write speed Just about everything with a memory card slot takes microSD these days. From phones and tablets to action cameras, dash cams and drones: they all use microSD for storage. Just any old card won’t do though, especially if you’re trying to record HD or even 4K video. Over the following pages we explain how to choose a microSD card that’s right for your needs. Buying guide First of all, it’s important to understand microSD standards as well as all the markings. There are different types of microSD card, even if they look identical. Capacity The first is microSDHC. The HC stands…

NVidia’s long-awaited GeForce GTX 1080 is spectacular – at least on paper. If you missed our review last month, here are the 10 things you need to know about the new card along with the just-as-impressive GeForce GTX 1070. 1 Ludicrous speed The most important thing to know is that this thing is fast. “Faster than dual GeForce GTX 980s in SLI” fast, which handily beats nVidia’s flagship Titan X, the most potent single-GPU graphics card ever released. During a demonstration, the new Doom topped out at roughly 200fps at 1080p resolution, with all the graphics settings set at maximum. 2 Impressive speed redux The Titan X’s high-water mark is the new mid-range for nVidia’s Pascal GPU architecture. The step-down GeForce GTX 1070 out punches the Titan X too, according…

Excel has many advanced and complex features, but for the majority of users these can be overwhelming or surplus to requirements. But if you’re just using Excel to display plain numbers without using any formulae at all, you’re missing out on its easy-to-use power. Basic formulae, such as summing the contents of multiple cells, form the backbone of how spreadsheets work. They let you quickly produce facts and figures from the data on the page, making all the calculations automatically. Here we’ll show you how get started with basic formulae and tap the power at the heart of Excel. What can you actually do? The formulae you can create in Excel consist of the basic mathematical processes – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. These can be applied to whole columns,…